Butcher of Lyon on trial - May 11, 1987 - HISTORY.com Butcher of Lyon on trial Share this: Butcher of Lyon on trial Author Butcher of Lyon on trial URL Publisher A+E Networks Klaus Barbie, the former Nazi Gestapo chief of German-occupied Lyon, France, goes on trial in Lyon more than four decades after the end of World War II. He was charged with 177 crimes against humanity. As chief of Nazi Germany’s secret police in Lyon, Barbie sent 7,500 French Jews and French Resistance partisans to concentration camps, and executed some 4,000 others. Among other atrocities, Barbie personally tortured and executed many of his prisoners. In 1943, he captured Jean Moulin, the leader of the French Resistance, and had him slowly beaten to death. In 1944, Barbie rounded up 44 young Jewish children and their seven teachers hiding in a boarding house in Izieu and deported them to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Of the 51, only one teacher survived.

In August 1944, as the Germans prepared to retreat from Lyon, he organized one last deportation train that took hundreds of people to the death camps. Barbie returned to Germany, and at the end of the war burned off his SS identification tattoo and assumed a new identity. With former SS officers, he engaged in underground anti-communist activity and in June 1947 surrendered himself to the U.S. Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) after the Americans offered him money and protection in exchange for his intelligence services. Barbie worked as a U.S. agent in Germany for two years, and the Americans shielded him from French prosecutors trying to track him down. In 1949, Barbie and his family were smuggled by the Americans to South America. Assuming the name of Klaus Altmann, Barbie settled in Bolivia and continued his work as a U.S. agent. He became a successful businessman and advised the military regimes of Bolivia. In 1971, the oppressive dictator Hugo Banzer Suarez came to power, and Barbie helped him set up brutal internment camps for his many political opponents.

During his 32 years in Bolivia, Barbie also served as an officer in the Bolivian secret police, participated in drug-running schemes, and founded a rightist death squad. He regularly traveled to Europe, and even visited France, where he had been tried in absentia in 1952 and 1954 for his war crimes and sentenced to death. In 1972, the Nazi hunters Serge Klarsfeld and Beatte Kunzel discovered Barbie’s whereabouts in Bolivia, but Banzer Suarez refused to extradite him to France. In the early 1980s, a liberal Bolivian regime came to power and agreed to extradite Barbie in exchange for French aid. On January 19, 1983, Barbie was arrested, and on February 7 he arrived in France. The statute of limitations had expired on his in-absentia convictions from the 1950s; he would have to be tried again. The U.S. government formally apologized to France for its conduct in the Barbie case later that year. Legal wrangling, especially between the groups representing his victims, delayed his trial for four years.

Finally, on May 11, 1987, the “Butcher of Lyon,” as he was known in France, went on trial for his crimes against humanity. In a courtroom twist unimaginable four decades earlier, Barbie was defended by three minority lawyers–an Asian, an African, and an Arab–who made the dramatic case that the French and the Jews were as guilty of crimes against humanity as Barbie or any other Nazi. Barbie’s lawyers seemed more intent on putting France and Israel on trial than in proving their client’s innocence, and on July 4, 1987, he was found guilty. For his crimes, the 73-year-old Barbie was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, France’s highest punishment. He died of cancer in a prison hospital in 1991. Related Videos BBC ON THIS DAY | 6 | 1983: 'Butcher of Lyon' returns to face trial About This Site | Text Only 1983: 'Butcher of Lyon' returns to face trial War criminal and former Gestapo commandant Klaus Barbie has arrived in France to stand trial for crimes committed 37 years ago.

The 69-year-old, known as the 'Butcher of Lyon', is believed to be behind for the deaths of more than 4,000 Jews, many of them children, between 1942 and 1944 when he was Gestapo chief in Lyon. He fled France at the end of World War II and has been in exile in Bolivia for the past 26 years, from where he was extradited yesterday. Barbie, who changed his name to Klaus Altmann when he arrived in South America, is also accused of sending more than 7,500 people to their deaths during his time in Lyon. Death sentences On arrival in Lyon in 1942 Klaus Barbie was given two tasks - to dismantle the Resistance and rid the city of Jews. His crimes include: The killing of 22 hostages, including women and children, in reprisal for an attack on two German policemen. The deportation of 55 Jews, including 52 children, from Izieu, east of Lyon. The liquidation of the Lyon Committee of the General Union of Jews of France and the subsequent deportation of 86 people on 9 February 1943.

France has made several attempts to extradite Barbie from Bolivia during the past 10 years since he was discovered living in La Paz by French Nazi hunter, Beate Klarsfeld. Mme Klarsfeld's husband, Serge Klarsfeld, is president of the Association of Sons and Daughters of Deported French Jews. The French have already condemned Klaus Barbie to death "in absentia", on two occasions for war crimes - once in 1952 and once in 1954 - but those convictions have now lapsed. The death penalty in France was abolished in 1981 so the maximum sentence he now faces is life imprisonment. It has recently emerged that the Americans shielded Barbie at the end of the war in return for information about the Soviets. He was able to flee to South America with temporary travel documents provided by the CIA. One of the most prominent people Barbie is suspected of murdering is Jean Moulin, leader of the French Resistance Movement during the war.

The Rat Lines, the Holocaust in France, 1940-1944, and the Klaus Barbie Case, Part II | Serbianna Analysis The Rat Lines, the Holocaust in France, 1940-1944, and the Klaus Barbie Case, Part II August 22, 2012 By Carl Savich Introduction Croatian Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic orchestrated the escape of one of the most wanted and notorious Nazi war crimes suspects of World War II. Klaus Barbie was one of the most infamous Nazi commanders during the Holocaust. He went under the sobriquet the “Butcher of Lyon”, “boucher de Lyon”. He was accused of responsibility for the deaths of 44 Jewish children from the town of Izieu in France. He was also accused of the murder of Jean Moulin, one of the key French Resistance leaders during World War II. The U.S. government knew that Barbie was wanted for war crimes in France. The Vatican was also aware of the charges against him. And yet, both the U.S. Government and the Vatican helped Barbie to escape prosecution for war crimes. How was this done?

Croatian Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic organized the escape from prosecution of wanted Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie in collaboration with the Vatican and U.S. intelligence. The method used was the infamous Rat Lines, set up by Croatian Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic, who had also been part of the NDH regime which murdered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Draganovic helped not only Croatian Ustasha leaders accused of genocide and war crimes to escape prosecution, but also high ranking German commanders such as Klaus Barbie. Barbie had been the Gestapo chief in Lyon. He was implicated in the deaths of 4,000 French civilians during the German occupation. Extradited to France, he was tried and convicted of committing “crimes against humanity”. Klaus Barbie had been a U.S. intelligence asset after the war. The U.S. employed him against the Soviet Union. The U.S. subsequently helped him escape by way of the Rat Lines operated by Draganovic. Indeed, the major leaders of the NDH Ustasha government were helped to escape by the U.S. and by the UK. Ante Pavelic was another wanted war criminal whom the U.S.

helped to escape prosecution for genocide and war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Why did the U.S. aid and abet, indeed, organize and orchestrate, wanted war criminals accused of war crimes and genocide to escape prosecution? How and why was this done? Klaus Barbie as a Gestapo officer. He was stationed in Lyon, France, in November, 1942, at the Hotel Terminus after duty in the Netherlands. Klaus Barbie, “the Butcher of Lyon” Klaus Barbie became the Gestapo chief in Lyon in November, 1942 when German troops re-occupied the Vichy or Free Zone, Zone Libre, in Operation Anton. Following the November 8, 1942 Allied landings in North Africa, known as Operation Torch, German forces swept into Vichy France and into Lyon on November 11. Lyon had been a center of French resistance. Three resistance groups emerged: Combat led by Henri Frenay, Liberation, headed by Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie, and Francs-Tireurs, headed by Jean-Pierre Levy.

The two socialist or Communist resistance groups were Front national headed by Pierre Villon and Comité d’action socialiste headed by Pierre Brossolette. Jean Moulin sought to establish a unified resistance movement in France, Conseil national de la Résistance (CNR). Barbie became the head of the Lyon Gestapo with a staff of 25 officers based in the Hotel Terminus. German troops had occupied Lyon on June 19, 1940 but had left the city on July 7 following the armistice. Barbie had been born in 1913 in Bonn, Germany, in a Roman Catholic family. He became a member of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD, Security Service), in September, 1935. The SD was the intelligence branch of the Nazi Party and the SS. Barbie served in Amsterdam in the Netherlands when German forces occupied the country in 1940. In 1942, he was assigned to Dijon in France. Barbie set up his headquarters at the Hotel Terminus, which became the headquarters of the Kommandantur der Sicherheitspolizei in Lyon where the SS would be based.

Barbie was an SS Obersturmfuehrer at that time whose assignment was to head the Gestapo in a counterinsurgency operation. He was to organize a commando squad, Einsatzkommando, that would engage and neutralize the French Resistance in the Lyon region. Mario Blardone, a member of the French Resistance, recalled being interrogated by Barbie. Blardone demanded to be treated as a combatant. Barbie, however, did not recognize him as a legitimate combatant. Barbie told him: “We don’t recognize de Gaulle’s clandestine army. You don’t come under the Geneva military conventions. That has nothing to do with you. You’re not an officer. To me you’re a bandit, a terrorist, nothing more.” (21) Bardone recalled that during his interrogation he was struck with fists, clubs, boots, and whips, and he was hoisted from a pulley with a rope attached to his hands which were cuffed behind his back. On June 21, 1943, Jean Moulin met with resistance leaders at the residence of Frédéric Dugoujon in Caluire-et-Cuire, a suburb of Lyon.

He was subsequently arrested and interrogated by Barbie. Moulin died on July 8. The cause of his death is not known. He is suspected to have died from the beatings and torture during his interrogations. Barbie, however, claimed that he died from injuries sustained during a suicide attempt. Witnesses described the torture that Moulin underwent. Hot needles were inserted under his fingernails. His fingers were placed between the hinges of a door which was closed shut, breaking his knuckles. He was beaten with a whip. Handcuffs with screw-levers were put on his wrists which were tightened until they cut into his skin and bone. He was repeatedly struck on the head and face until he lapsed into unconsciousness and into a coma. Christian Pineau, another prisoner, described Moulin as “unconscious, his eyes dug in as though they had been punched through his head. An ugly blue wound scarred his temple. A mute rattle came out of his swollen lips.” Other resistance leaders observed that Moulin remained in a coma at Gestapo headquarters in Lyon, his body placed in an office on a chaise lounge. His head was covered with bandages, his breathing was heavy, and his face was yellow.

He subsequently died from his injuries. Barbie was awarded the “First Class Iron Cross with Swords” for his successes against the French resistance reportedly by Adolf Hitler himself. Lise Lesevre, a prisoner interrogated by Barbie, stated that she was tortured for nine days by Barbie in 1944. She was beaten with a rubber bar and hung up by hand-cuffs with spikes. She was told to strip and was submerged in a bathtub by Barbie. Barbie hit her on the back with a spiked ball attached to a chain, breaking her vertebrae, during an interrogation. Ennat Leger recalled that during an interrogation by Barbie, her teeth were broken, her hair was pulled back, and a bottle was placed in her mouth until her lips were split. In Unhealed Wounds: France and the Klaus Barbie Affair (Toronto: Methuen Publications, 1985), Erna Paris wrote that Klaus Barbie trained a dog to sexually assault women prisoners: Women were always tortured naked, to the deep enjoyment of the torturers. Barbie kept two German shepherd dogs. One was trained to lunge and bite. The other was trained to mount naked women who had first been ordered on their hands and knees.

A humiliation that cut deeper than the whip, than having one’s fingernails pulled. Staff members and children at the orphanage in Idzieu, known as La Maison d’Izieu, in eastern France. The Children of Izieu On April 6, 1944, French Jewish children at the orphanage at Izieu were arrested and deported by German troops, Gestapo officers, and the French militia, milice, which had a strength of 35,000 members, led by SS Sturmbannfuehrer Joseph Darnand. Klaus Barbie sent a signed telex to Gestapo headquarters in Paris ordering the deportations: The Jewish children’s home in Izieu (Ain) was closed down this morning. A total of 41 children aged 3 to 13 [sic] were arrested. Additionally, all the Jewish personnel—comprising ten people, including five women—were also arrested. Money or other valuables were not discovered. Transport to Drancy follows 7.4.44. Signed Barbie.

Theo Reiss, Miron Zlatin, and another child were deported on May 15 to Reval, Estonia, where they were shot. The others were transported to Paris. On April 13, the children and adults were sent to Auschwitz by train. Lea Feldbaum was the only survivor. Julian Favet, a farmhand, witnessed the arrest: “The Germans were loading the children into the lorries brutally, as if they were sacks of potatoes. Most of them were frightened and crying.” Theo Reiss had tried to escape. “They grabbed him and started beating him with the butts of their rifles, and kicking him in the shins.” Sabine Zlatin, a nurse who was in charge of the orphanage, said she could ”neither pardon nor forget. … For 43 years I have carried Izieu in my heart.” She testified against Barbie at the trial. One eyewitness described the events in the Lyon Figaro, Philippe Brunet-Lecomte, “Les trois traîtres français d”Izieu,” June 2, 1987: It was breakfast time. The children were in the refectory drinking hot chocolate.

I was on my way down the stairs when I saw three trucks in the drive. My sister shouted to me: it’s the Germans, save yourself! I jumped out the window. I hid myself in a bush in the garden…I heard the cries of the children that were being kidnapped and I heard the shouts of the Nazis who were carrying them away…They threw the children into the trucks like they were sacks of potatoes. Most of them were crying, terrorized. In all, 44 children were deported from the orphanage, known as La Maison d’Izieu. None of the children survived. During the Holocaust in France, over 8,000 Jewish children in France under the age of thirteen died. The deportations of French Jews to Auschwitz continued until August, 1944. Allied forces entered Paris on August 25, 1944. Marshal Henri Philippe Petain and the Vichy ministers fled to Germany, where a government-in-exile was established at Sigmaringen. Defense attorney Jacques Verges, left, with Klaus Barbie at his trial in France for war crimes, 1987.

The Klaus Barbie Trial On January 19, 1983, Klaus Barbie was arrested and extradited to France by the Bolivian government under Hernan Siles Zuazo. Barbie had escaped to Bolivia after the war aided by the Rat Lines established by the Vatican and by help from US intelligence services. In 1947, Barbie was recruited as an agent by the 66th Detachment of the U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC). In 1951, he escaped to Argentina by means of the Rat Line organized by U.S. intelligence services and the Croatian Ustasha Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic. Barbie arrived with his family in La Paz, Bolivia on April 23, 1951. A CIC memorandum described the successful outcome of the operation by noting that “the final disposal of an extremely sensitive individual has been handled.” In La Paz, he met with Father Rogue Romac, described as a Draganovic exile, a member of his network, as detailed in Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (New York: Verso, 1999).

Romac’s real name was Osvaldo Toth, a Croatian Roman Catholic priest who was himself wanted for war crimes. Toth assisted Barbie in operating saw mills in the rain forests near Santa Cruz and lumber yards in La Paz. He became a successful businessman and entrepreneur. His first contact in Bolivia was former SS Colonel Frederick Schwendt. Relying on his Gestapo experience and expertise, Barbie subsequently became an internal security consultant in the right-wing and pro-fascist Victor Paz Estensorro government with other Nazi escapees such as Heinz Wolf. On October 7, 1957, Barbie was rewarded for his services to the government by receiving Bolivian citizenship for himself and his family. This allowed him to successfully resist any extradition attempts to France. He had been sentenced twice, in 1952 and in 1954, to death in absentia, by war crimes courts in France.

There were reports that Barbie had organized or assisted the Bolivian government, military, and the CIA in apprehending and executing Che Guevara on October 8-9, 1967 as reported by David Smith in The Guardian, December 22, 2007, “Barbie ‘boasted of hunting down Che””. It was reported that Barbie had even met with Major Ralph “Pappy” Shelton, the U.S. officer who trained the Bolivian military and organized the operation, who relied on his anti-guerrilla knowledge and background in destroying the French Resistance during World War II. The issue was presented in the 2007 documentary My Enemy’s Enemy by British director Kevin Macdonald. He settled in Bolivia under the assumed name of Klaus Altmann. Barbie also worked for the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the West German federal intelligence service in 1965-1967 as reported in the January 19, 2011 issue of Der Spiegel. Klaus Barbie was considered for reactivation in 1965 by U.S. Army intelligence based on the evidence uncovered by U.S.

State Department investigator Allan A. Ryan, Jr. in Klaus Barbie and the United States Government: The Report, with Documentary Appendix, to the Attorney General of the United States (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1984). The U.S. Army discussed it but eventually rejected it because the “potential gain” of re-recruiting Barbie “outweighed the manifest risks.” In Bolivia, he became an adviser in the right-wing René Barrientos Ortuno government, assisting the military junta in counterinsurgency operations in 1964-1965 noted for his “police skills” and fervent anti-Communism. Ortuno had seized power in a 1964 coup. His regime established closer relations with the CIA. The CIA sent advisers and brought 1,600 Bolivian military officers to the United States for training and instruction at military bases. He worked with the Bolivian military secret service in the suppression and quashing of political opposition by providing them with his expertise in interrogation techniques, torture methods, and anti-guerrilla tactics.

When Colonel Hugo Banzer Suárez’s seized power in 1971 in a CIA-backed coup, Barbie became a consultant to the interior ministry and counter-espionage section of the Bolivian army. His identity was exposed in 1971 by Serge and Beate Klarsfeld. Nevertheless, he was shielded and protected by the Bolivian juntas who refused to arrest and extradite him for prosecution. On February 11, 1972, French President Georges Pompidou had requested the extradition of Barbie to France to stand trial for war crimes. Bolivian President Hugo Banzer denied the request. Barbie was tried for “crimes against humanity” in France because the 20 year Statute of Limitations precluded his trial for war crimes. He was initially charged with eight counts: 1) The murder in 1943 of 22 hostages at Gestapo headquarters. 2) The arrest and torture of 19 people in 1943. 3) The apprehension of 86 people from the offices of the U.G.I.F. on February 9, 1943.

4) The execution of 42 people in reprisal in 1943 and 1944. 40 of the victims were Jewish. 5) The arrest, torture, and subsequent deportation of SNCF railway workers on August 9, 1944. 6) The deportation of 650 people to the Auschwitz concentration camp by train from Lyon. Half of the victims were Jewish, half were resistance fighters, resistants. 7) The executions of 70 Montluc prisoners at Bron on August 17, 1944 and on August 20, 1944, including two priests. 8) The arrest and deportation of 55 Jews from the children’s orphanage at Izieu. 52 of the victims were children. Five of the charges were dropped.

The Nuremberg Trials had established the criteria of what constituted “crimes against humanity”, defined as: “Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated”. Klaus Barbie under arrest, left, and in uniform as an SS officer with collar insignia indicating the rank of Sturmfuehrer, or first lieutenant. Based at the Hotel Terminus, Barbie had been the Gestapo chief in Lyon, known as “The Butcher of Lyon”. He was accused of personally torturing prisoners and complicity in the killing of 4,000 French citizens during the World War II occupation of France. He was held responsible for the arrest, torture, and death of Jean Moulin, a leader of the French Resistance. He was also accused of ordering the deportation of the 44 French Jewish children from the Izieu orphanage in April, 1944 to Auschwitz. Barbie denied the charges.

He maintained his innocence: “When I stand before the throne of God I shall be judged innocent”. The Barbie trial began on May 11, 1987. It was a jury trial before the Rhône Cour d’assises. The proceedings were filmed. The prosecution team consisted of forty lawyers who represented the victims. Pierre Truche was the chief prosecutor. Barbie was represented by Jacques Verges. Verges argued that Barbie was being selectively prosecuted: “Barbie has been promoted to the rank of an expiatory victim, a scapegoat so that France can try and shed its own responsibility.” The French government had committed crimes as a colonialist and imperialist power that were not prosecuted. Verges attacked the actions of the French government in Algeria and of French leaders of the Vichy regime during the war. He maintained that they too should be prosecuted for war crimes. The trial lasted for eight weeks. The jury deliberated for six hours before reaching a verdict in the case. He was found guilty by the French court of committing crimes against humanity and on July 4, 1987 sentenced to life imprisonment.

He died on September 25, 1991 at the age of 77. How had he evaded arrest until 1983? Why and how was a known and wanted Nazi war criminal allowed to evade prosecution? What role did the U.S. Government play in his escape to Bolivia? What role did the Vatican play? What role did Croatian Roman Catholic priest Krunoslav Draganovic play? Nazi “Butcher of Lyon” was a German intelligence agent - World Socialist Web Site World Socialist Web Site Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) Nazi “Butcher of Lyon” was a German intelligence agent By Dietmar Henning 22 January 2011 Klaus Barbie, the Nazi war criminal infamously known as the “Butcher of Lyon”, was an agent of the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in the 1960s. This was revealed recently by the news magazine Der Spiegel. Adopting the name Klaus Altmann at the time, Barbie operated under the code name “Eagle” (agent number V-43118) and provided the BND with at least 35 political reports in 1966.

His payment for this—up to DM 500 (deutschmarks)—was transferred to him via a branch of the Chartered Bank of London in San Francisco. BND files praised the “quintessentially German attitude” of this “decisive enemy of communists”. At the turn of 1966-67, the BND terminated contact with its source, Barbie alias Altmann, paying him a final cash settlement of DM 1,000. This last point was discovered by a history student at the University of Mainz, Peter Hammerschmidt. He is currently working on a degree thesis entitled “‘The Butcher of Lyon’ in the pay of the United States: Concerning the relations between Klaus Barbie and the American secret service”. In September, Hammerschmidt was able to view Barbie’s BND file as part of his scientific work and released his findings about Barbie’s BND past earlier this year. As a captain in the SS (Hitler’s elite force) from 1940 to 1942, Klaus Barbie tortured and murdered people in the German occupied Netherlands and Belgium.

During this time, he was “head of Jewish affairs in the main office of the Reich (empire) Security Department” in The Hague. From November 1942, he was chief of the Gestapo (Nazi secret police) in Lyon in the area of southern France administered by the pro-fascist Vichy regime of General Petain. His horrifically cruel crimes committed there earned him the title “Butcher of Lyon”. His victims were workers, peasants and members of the resistance—including Jean Moulin, whose arms, legs and ribs were broken in the course of daily interrogations. Women were beaten unconscious, raped and sodomised. Thousands of men and women were tortured, sent to extermination camps or killed by Barbie. These included 41 Jewish children from Izieu, France, aged 3 to 13, whose deportations were arranged by Barbie on April 6, 1944. They died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Towards the end of 1944, Barbie suddenly disappeared, going into hiding somewhere in Germany shortly before the end of war.

Accused of numerous crimes, he was sentenced to death in absentia by the French authorities for the first time in 1947, and again in 1952 and 1954 following the discovery of further crimes. However, the wanted war criminal was protected by both the intelligence service of the US army, its Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), and the German authorities. Hammerschmidt claims that Barbie’s name appeared on the CIC’s payroll in April 1947, although it had been on the allies’ wanted list in the spring of 1946. This saved him from extradition to France and he was able to live in Germany undisturbed. As an agent of the CIA from 1950, Barbie recruited members for the far-right League of German Youth (BDJ) that was later to be banned. The BDJ was the German vanguard organisation of the infamous Gladio NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) troops in Europe. This paramilitary organisation with close ties to extreme right-wing terrorists was set up to carry out sabotage and assassinations behind enemy lines in the event of an attack from the Soviet Union.

Aided by the US in 1951, Barbie emigrated to Bolivia under the name of Klaus Altmann via the so-called “rat lines”. Unlike many other war criminals in South America, Barbie did not simply disappear from the scene, but rose to the position of official adviser to Bolivia’s right-wing military dictatorships. Operating from the army’s headquarters, he passed on experience acquired in Lyon that was useful to members of the military secret service in their suppression of political opposition: “interrogation techniques”, “torture methods” and “anti-guerrilla tactics”. Under René Barrientos Ortuno’s military junta, Barbie rose to the post of military advisor for counterinsurgency in 1964-65, receiving a diplomatic passport in 1966. At the same time, Barbie managed a sawmill under the name of Altmann. He became rich owing to the Vietnam War, when he sold vast quantities of cinchona plant—the raw material for the antimalarial analgesic quinine—to the German chemical company Böhringer in Mannheim. He was simultaneously involved in the arms and drug trades.

From the mid- to late 1960s, the Butcher of Lyon travelled to South American countries and to Spain and Portugal, supplying their respective dictatorships with weapons. After Colonel Hugo Banzer Suárez’s bloody CIA-backed coup in 1971, Barbie was promoted to a paid consultant to the interior ministry and counter-espionage division of the Bolivian army. In addition, he established his own paramilitary force, which he used to support the military coup by General Luis García Meza in 1980. During the rule of President Hernán Siles Zuazo two-and-a-half years later, the Bolivian police arrested Barbie on January 19, 1983. In the same year, he was extradited to France and brought to court in Lyon. According to Hammerschmidt, who was also able to carry out research in the US National Archives (NARA) in Washington, a CIA document from December 1983 mentions that the prevailing French government of Francois Mitterrand—for domestic political reasons—had purchased Barbie’s sudden extradition from Bolivia with weapons: small arms, machine guns, antitank weapons and ammunition.

Barbie was accused of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment on July 4, 1987. He died in prison in 1991. The shared history of German intelligence and the CIA The close cooperation between Barbie and the CIA has been known for some time. What is new is that the Nazi criminal was also on the payroll of the BND. This is not so surprising, however, because the BND was established by US intelligence agencies. In the last years of the Second World War, German politicians as well as generals and officers of the army were preparing themselves for the German defeat. They were banking on the mutual hostility of the US, France and Great Britain to the Soviet Union. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, the right-wing bourgeois politician, former mayor of Leipzig and long-time advisor to Hitler—also one of the “men of July 20” who attempted to assassinate Hitler—wrote in a memorandum to the generals on March 26, 1943: “The two Anglo-Saxon empires share, as does Germany, the vital interest that Bolshevism does not penetrate further to the west. Only Germany can stop the spread of Bolshevism.

If Germany is weakened by losses from the war and an unfavourable peace treaty, then Bolshevism will find it easier, perhaps all too easy, to make its way west …” Towards the end of World War II and immediately afterwards, the US was particularly intent on gaining access to the Nazis’ scientific and technical knowledge. During the Cold War, it maintained an extensive spy network with the help of ex-Nazis. Particularly important in this respect was the role of Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler’s chief of military intelligence on the Eastern Front. From 1942 to 1945, he headed the general staff’s espionage division “Foreign Armies in the East”. Gehlen had kept his files safely stored in the belief that he could pass them on to the US after the war, thereby continuing the “fight against Bolshevism” to Germany’s advantage—and his own. “In a Europe arming itself in defence against communism, Germany would again be able to find its place”, writes Gehlen in his memoirs. Directly after the war, he and his “Organisation Gehlen” were placed at the disposal of the US intelligence service, known then as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and later the CIA.

Gehlen was commissioned to set up a German foreign intelligence service, which was to be directed primarily against the Soviet Union. The US was prepared to use “any bastard, as long as he was anti-communist”, as Harry Rositzke, head of CIA operations in the Soviet Union, put it. Entire leading divisions of the SS Security Service (SD) were sometimes incorporated into the BND. The German government under Konrad Adenauer (Christian Democratic Union) was not initially informed about the CIA’s cooperation with Gehlen. Gehlen first made contact with the new federal government and the Social Democratic Party at the end of 1950. Hans Globke, Adenauer’s right-hand man, was the first to be officially associated with the general who worked with his agents in Pullach near Munich. “I immediately found a good contact and got the impression that he rightly valued the importance of my organisation”, Gehlen later wrote. Globke, a lawyer at the time, was author of the commentary on the Nazis’ Nuremberg race laws published in 1936 (Commentary on German Racial Legislation, Wilhelm Stuckart and Hans Globke, Munich and Berlin: 1936).

By the summer of 1949, about 400 employees of the BND, most of them in senior positions, originated from the Nazis’ security apparatus. In an internal investigation in the early 1960s, approximately 200 BND staff were identified as former members of the Nazi security agencies, some of them involved in war crimes. An estimated 25 to 30 percent of BND staff had Nazi backgrounds even into the early 1970s. Gehlen himself headed the BND until his retirement in May 1968. Gehlen, Globke and Barbie were not isolated cases. The names of senior officials, judges, public prosecutors, SS and party members from the Third Reich, all of whom continued their careers in the German Federal Republic more or less without interruption, would fill volumes. When the first German parliament assembled in West Germany, more than half the new deputies had been members of the Nazi party before 1945. The prosecution of Nazi criminals like Adolf Eichmann and Klaus Barbie was sabotaged and thwarted.

According to Hammerschmidt, one of Barbie’s relatives testified to the police in April 1961 that Klaus Barbie and his family had been taken abroad by the Americans. She named the city of La Paz in Bolivia as his place of refuge and revealed Barbie’s new name, Altmann. However, investigations were prolonged and court proceedings were first temporarily adjourned on March 20, 1967, and finally closed by the Munich prosecutor owing to lack of evidence on June 22, 1971. The US authorities behaved no differently. Hammerschmidt claims the State Department was informed by the Pentagon in 1971 that it was “an obligation of national security to continue to keep Barbie’s files secret”. Meanwhile, leading circles in Germany regard it necessary to deal with the Nazi past of major German corporations and government agencies. According to Der Spiegel, the BND itself has been working for weeks with the historians Jost Dülffer (Cologne), Klaus-Dietmar Henke (Dresden), Wolfgang Krieger (Marburg) and Rolf-Dieter Müller (Potsdam) in relation to the history of the BND in its first decades.

Allegedly, they have been given full access to all the BND files, even “secret” and “top secret” files. Advocates of “unrestricted access” to their own history are aiming to boost the clout of a German foreign policy that increasingly pursues its own imperialist interests. This is also the reason for the publication of a committee report on the Foreign Office, commissioned by former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer (Green Party). In 1952, two-thirds of the senior officials in the Foreign Office were former Nazi party members; among division heads it was four-fifths. The office supported the crimes of the Nazi regime, largely on its own initiative. (See “ The German foreign office and its defenders ”) But, as in the past, there are bound to be fierce clashes when it comes to opening up the history of the BND. Hammerschmidt says that his request for access to files at the BND was initially refused in the summer of 2010. It took an official complaint to the chancellor’s office before he was able inspect the BND’s file on Barbie a few months later.

The four historians from Cologne, Dresden, Marburg and Potsdam currently cooperating with the BND will be able to see all the files, but will not be allowed to publish everything they find. The BND reserves the right to exercise a veto on the grounds of non-disclosure of classified information. Further conflicts are therefore inevitable. Der Spiegel reports that journalist Gaby Weber recently had to lodge a complaint with the Federal Administrative Court in order to be allowed access to BND files on the Nazi mass murderer, Adolf Eichmann. However, the BND countered by appealing to the security interests of the Federal Republic of Germany—almost 50 years after Eichmann’s execution in Israel. World War II World War II Timeline 1 Sep 1939 Hitler reluctantly invades Poland, but only after being provoked by warmongering Poles. The previous night, a Polish commando team shot their way into a German radio station in the border town of Gleiwitz, and broadcasted a radical call to arms against the peaceloving nation of Germany. Except that it was all an elaborate sham engineered by Nazi general Reinhard Heydrich , dubbed Operation Canned Goods.

22 Jun 1940 France surrenders; hilarity ensues. Adolf Hitler forces the instrument of surrender to be signed in the very railcar in which the French inflicted the humiliating World War I Treaty of Versailles upon the Germans. 8 Sep 1941 The Nazi siege of Leningrad begins. 23 Feb 1942 The first Japanese attack on the U.S. mainland occurs when an I-17 submarine fires 13 shells at an oil refinery near Goleta, Southern California. $500 damage was inflicted. It was not clear why this target was chosen until much later, when it was found that the commander of this particular submarine had visited the site in the 1930s and stumbled into a field of prickly pear cactus. Captain Nishino never forgave the ridicule he received from his American hosts that day. 28 Apr 1942 The ongoing global conflict is given the name "World War II" after a Gallup Poll is taken. 27 May 1942 A couple of Czech assassins ambush the car carrying Reinhard Heydrich and toss a grenade into the front seat.

The man who headed the Wannsee Conference is mortally wounded in the attack, and dies of septicemia a week later. The Nazis retaliate by obliterating the Catholic village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia and its inhabitants. 21 Jun 1942 A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, and fires 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens. Nobody is injured. It is one of a handful of attacks by the Japanese during World War II against the U.S. mainland. 13 Jan 1943 Hitler declares "Total War". 29 Jan 1943 Nazi police discover necrophiliac Bruno Ludke committing a crime against nature on the fresh corpse of a young female victim. He confesses that he has murdered no fewer than 85 and committed indecencies with most of their corpses. Ludke is committed to a hospital in Vienna for experiments, where he is killed in April of 1944. 30 Apr 1943 The body of one Major Martin washes ashore on the Spanish coastline, carrying sensitive papers detailing an upcoming Allied invasion of Sardinia.

"Martin" is actually an unidentified corpse carrying forged documents, intended to misdirect Italian defense forces. When the Allies later invade Sicily, most of Italy's defenses are in Sardinia. 27 Jan 1944 The siege of Leningrad ends. Over 800,000 residents out of 3 million have died. 20 Jul 1944 In an attempt on Hitler 's life, a timebomb explodes in the situation room of the Wolf's Lair, killing four Nazi officers but only wounding the Fuhrer. After his close call, Hitler becomes even more paranoid. A massive purge is to follow, resulting in the execution of thousands of officers. 2 Sep 1944 During a raid on the Pacific island of ChiChi Jima, the bomber flown by Navy pilot George HW Bush is struck by antiaircraft fire. Bush ditches the plane in the Pacific and is the only person to survive the crash. 30 Jan 1945 The largest maritime disaster in history leaves 7700 dead after a Soviet submarine torpedoes the Nazi ship Wilhelm Gustoff. 31 Jan 1945 Private Eddie Slovik is the first U.S.

soldier to be shot for desertion since the Civil War. 7 Mar 1945 Gen. George Patton urinates in the Rhine after the U.S. Third Army takes the bridge at Remagen. 19 Mar 1945 Adolf Hitler orders all military and industrial facilities within the Third Reich destroyed. Albert Speer does everything he can to stop this from happening, in direct defiance of Hitler. 27 Mar 1945 Argentina declares war on Nazi Germany . Of course, this was just a silly charade for the benefit of the world community. Argentina would be a quiet ally of Germany for the duration of the war, even welcoming many Nazi and SS leaders to emigrate there in the aftermath. 3 May 1945 British torpedo bombers attack the Cap Arcona and the Thielbek in the Baltic Sea. Both vessels are flying white flags, as there are almost 7,000 concentration camp prisoners aboard. In the process of abandoning ship, the German captain of the Arcona uses a machete to hack his way through the mass of people. When the ships sink, virtually all of the prisoners drown, making this the single largest loss of life in the history of ocean travel.

5 May 1945 Elsie Mitchell and five children she is watching are killed by a Japanese balloon bomb which drifted over the Pacific into Oregon. They are the only people killed in action on the US mainland during World War II. 7 May 1945 German admiral Carl Doenitz unconditionally surrenders to Allied forces at Reims, France, thus ending the war in Europe. 6 Jul 1945 The Joint Chiefs of Staff approve Operation OVERCAST, intended to "exploit ... chosen rare minds whose continuing intellectual productivity we wish to use." The directive authorizes the immigration of up to 350 German and Austrian specialists, primarily experts in rocketry. Operation OVERCAST is later renamed Project PAPERCLIP. 6 Aug 1945 At 9:15am, Col. Paul Tibbets releases "Little Boy" over Hiroshima and executes a hard, 159-degree turn. 40 seconds later, the Atomic Bomb detonates, yielding a 12.5 kiloton explosion and a huge, black mushroom cloud.

About 45,000 people are killed immediately, and another 200,000 are killed in later years by leukemia and other radiation illnesses. 9 Aug 1945 Because of the dense cloudcover over Kokura, USAF Maj. Charles Sweeney diverts his B-29 Bock's Car to the designated secondary target, 95 miles to the south. There he drops "Fat Man" -- a 22 kiloton Atomic Bomb -- over the city of Nagasaki, population 270,000. The blast kills 24,000 immediately, but another 46,000 perish from radiation-related illnesses over the next four months. 2 Sep 1945 On the shelter deck of the USS Missouri in Yokohama harbor, 11 representatives of Emperor Hirohito sign the Instrument of Surrender. 9 Dec 1945 Ronald Reagan receives an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army. He had spent World War II in Hollywood, acting in military training films.

3 Jan 1946 William Joyce, the " Lord Haw-Haw " who broadcasted Nazi propaganda to Britain during World War II, was hanged for treason in London. 23 May 1960 Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion reveals that Mossad agents have captured fugitive war criminal Adolf Eichmann and smuggled him out of Argentina. Ben-Gurion announces: "Eichmann is already in this country under arrest and will shortly be brought to trial." 24 Jan 1972 Corporal Shoichi Yokoi is discovered hiding out in Guam by two hunters. He had been living in a cave since 1944, assuming that World War II was still underway. His first question: "Tell me quick, is Roosevelt dead?" 26 Feb 1974 A U.S. Senate report reveals Ford Motor's involvement in Nazi Germany's war efforts, for which CEO Henry Ford received the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Adolf Hitler himself. After the war, the car company was paid nearly $1M reparation by the U.S. government to compensate for one of its plants that was bombed within the Reich . 5 Mar 1974 Second Lt.

Hiroo Onoda of the Imperial Japanese Army surrenders to Philippine authorities. He believed World War II was still underway and continued a 30 year guerrila battle with other islanders. His final capitulation came when his senior officer, Maj. Taniguchi, ordered his surrender. Upon return to the Japanese homeland, Onoda was treated as a hero, but had difficulty coping with his "postwar" life. 19 Jan 1977 President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino ("Tokyo Rose"). 6 Feb 1983 Klaus Barbie , the "Butcher of Lyon" who had been living as a mild-mannered Bolivian businessman, charged with Nazi war crimes . He is later sentenced to life imprisonment and dies in 1991. 8 Jun 1986 Former UN Secretary General and Nazi war criminal Kurt Waldheim is elected president of Austria. One year later, the U.S. Justice Department places him on a watch list of undesirable aliens, making Waldheim the first foreign head of state legally forbidden from visiting America.

4 Jul 1987 A court in Lyon, France convicts Klaus Barbie , the Butcher of Lyon, for the deportation of Jews, torture of resistance fighters, and crimes against humanity during World War II. Barbie spends the rest of his life in prison. 7 Jan 1989 Marine biologist Emperor Hirohito dead from cancer. Prior to his scientific career, Hirohito was the highest profile unindicted war criminal, presiding over such events as the Rape of Nanking and the unnecessary deaths of over 1 million Japanese in 1945 after it became quite clear the war was lost. 4 Aug 1993 Japan finally acknowledges that it forced 200,000 Korean and Chinese "comfort women" to fuck members of its armed forces between 1932 and 1945. Japan apologizes for the "immeasurable pain and incurable psychological wounds" it inflicted by forcing these women to be state whores , but makes no offer to pay reparations.

Klaus Barbie Biography - life, family, childhood, children, name, story, death, wife, young Klaus Barbie Biography Lyon, France German military leader Klaus Barbie, known as the "Butcher of Lyon," was a leader in the Nazi group called the SS, and was head of anti-Resistance operations in France during the German occupation of World War II (1935–45). As a war criminal (someone who commits crimes that violate the conventions of warfare during wartime) Barbie lived in Bolivia as Klaus Altmann for thirty years before he was arrested and returned to France for trial. Shadow of war Klaus Barbie was born October 25, 1913, in the town of Bad Godesberg, a few miles down the Rhine River from Bonn, Germany. The son of a schoolteacher, he spent an uneventful childhood as a good but not brilliant student with a gift for languages. His father had served and had been wounded in World War I (1914–18). Klaus Barbie grew up in a Germany that had been bitterly humiliated by its defeat in the war. Barbie's father died in 1932, leaving the family with little money.

With no funds to go to college, he began working for the National Socialist Germany Workers Party (Nazi Party), the party that brought Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) to power in Germany. A sinister career Hitler became chancellor (head of the government) of Germany in 1933. Two years later, when Barbie was twenty-two, he joined the Shutzstaffel (SS), the Nazi Party's security squad that swore loyalty not to Germany but to Hitler. He served in the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence and security branch of the SS, and was assigned to a number of posts in Europe for the next six years. During this time, as the German war machine swept westward, Barbie won a reputation as a shrewd, dedicated SS officer. He earned increases in his position, and admiring superiors expressed their approval of his performance. After Germany invaded France in 1941, Barbie became head of operations to control the Resistance, the underground organization of French patriots resisting Nazi rule. He is widely believed to have been responsible for the torture and death of Jean Moulin (1899–1943), the secret head of France's anti-Nazi coalition.

As head of the Gestapo security police in Lyon, Barbie also appears to have been responsible for a number of "actions" against innocent French Jews. Among them a raid on an orphanage in the town of Izieu, which sent over fifty boys and girls to the gas chambers at the concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland. Klaus Barbie. Archive Photos, Inc. Postwar activities When the war in Europe ended in spring 1945 with the Nazis' defeat, Barbie hid from the Allies (the nations allied against Germany, including Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States) until April 1947. At this point he was recruited by the Counter Intelligence Corps of the U.S. Army in occupied Germany. Although the army had a warrant for Barbie's arrest as someone suspected of underground activities, the regional commander decided that his skills as an interrogator (someone who questions suspects or prisoners) made him more valuable as a spy than as a prisoner. Over the next four years Barbie took on increasing responsibility for the army. At one time he ran a spy network that included scores of informants in East and West Germany and France. Barbie soon became one of the army's most trusted spies.

In 1949, however, his presence became known to French war crimes investigators, who demanded that the "Butcher of Lyon" be turned over to them to stand trial for his crimes. The U.S. army took a fateful step. It decided not to surrender Barbie to the French, fearing embarrassment by his service and worrying that he might disclose wide-ranging U.S. intelligence efforts to the French. With the aid of a Croatian priest, it delivered Barbie to Genoa, Italy, under the false name of "Klaus Altmann." There he and his wife and two young children boarded an Italian ship to Buenos Aires, Argentina. The "Altmann" family quickly moved to the mountainous city of La Paz, Bolivia, where Barbie supported himself as an auto mechanic. Barbie's skills as a spy did not go unnoticed in the military government of Bolivia, and before long he became an associate of high-ranking generals. It is likely that he served as an adviser to Bolivia's secret security police. It is known that he became the director of Transmaritima Boliviana, a company organized to hire ships to bring supplies to land-locked Bolivia.

He lived as any prosperous businessman might and was often seen in La Paz's cafes and restaurants. True identity discovered The past began to catch up with Barbie in 1971. Beate Klarsfeld, a German-born homemaker married to French lawyer Serge Klarsfeld, discovered from a German prosecutor's files that Barbie was living in Bolivia under the name of Altmann. In a dramatic move, she went to La Paz and chained herself to a fence, demanding that "Altmann" be tried for his crimes. Although Klarsfeld's initial effort was unsuccessful, the spotlight of publicity was on Barbie to stay. For over a decade, "Altmann" denied that he was Barbie, but his identity was no secret to the regimes that had kept Bolivia under military rule. Finally, in 1982, a civilian government came to power. In February 1983 Barbie was arrested and turned over to French officials. Barbie's return to France created tremendous publicity and soul-searching in the country, which had never fully come to terms with its mixed record of both collaboration with and resistance to the Nazis.

Shortly after his return, the prosecutor in Lyon announced that Barbie would stand trial on several charges of "crimes against humanity." These events had consequences in America as well. Following a five-month investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed Barbie's post-war role for U.S. intelligence and issued a formal apology to France for "delaying justice in Lyon" for nearly thirty-three years. Justice served Like nearly all the others who committed horrifying deeds under the Nazis, Barbie showed little remorse for his crimes. "There are no war crimes," he said. "There are only acts of war." When he was expelled from Bolivia, he seemed indifferent, saying, "I did my duty. I have forgotten. If they [the French] have not forgotten, that is their business." The French had not forgotten. Nevertheless, three years after his return Barbie was still in a jail cell in Lyon, with no date set for his trial.

The long awaited trial was again delayed in 1986, when the French Court of Indictments ruled that Barbie could be tried for crimes against Resistance fighters as well as for "crimes against humanity." Barbie was imprisoned for life in 1987 for crimes including the murders of at least four Jews and Resistance workers and fifteen thousand deportations to death camps. He was the last German war criminal of rank to be tried. Barbie died of cancer in a prison hospital in Lyon on September 25, 1991. For More Information Beattie, John. The Life and Career of Klaus Barbie: An Eyewitness Record. London: Methuen, 1984. Murphy, Brendan. The Butcher of Lyon: The Story of Infamous Nazi Klaus Barbie. New York: Empire Books, 1983.

User Contributions: Nazi war criminal Klaus Altmann worked as a drug lord fixer in South America | Daily Mail Online The second life of a Nazi war criminal: German documentary reveals how 'butcher of Lyon' Klaus Barbie became a fixer for drug lords when he went on the run in South America Barbie became known as Klaus Altmann when he went on the run in 1945 He worked as a druglord fixer in Latin America and met with Pablo Escobar General Luis García Meza was helped into power in Bolivia by drug money Barbie tortured top French resistance operatives and is estimated to have been directly involved in the deaths of 14,000 people

Question: Who was known as ‘The Butcher of Lyon’ during World War II?
Answer: Klaus Barbie